Immortal Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

joggers. Liz finger-combed her hair, uncomfortably aware of her bare shoulders and her companion’s naked chest, magnificently visible in his open leather coat. Oddly, though, no one seemed to notice. Maybe the Danes were inured to tourists stumbling home at sunrise.
    Golden clouds streaked the sky. Sunlight sparkled on the blue waters of the harbor. The buildings were flat and bright as dollhouses or images on a postcard.
    Liz raised her head, momentarily roused from her funk by the scene. “That’s the Little Mermaid.”
    Morgan spared a glance for the rocky shore and the life-size statue gazing out to sea. “A facsimile.”
    She stopped. This was still her trip of a lifetime. She might never get another chance to see the iconic statue, its bronze warmed to blush by the rising sun. “She looks sad.”
    “She was a fool,” Morgan said.
    “Excuse me?”
    He looked down his brawler’s nose at her. “To sacrifice the sea.”
    “Well, but she had a good reason, didn’t she? She fell in love. With a prince.”
    “Another fool.”
    She was not going to let him ruin her fairy tale. “The point is, she chose love.”
    “She chose death.”
    Liz looked at him wryly. “I take it you’re not a believer in the Disney princess version.”
    He looked blank.
    “You know, Ariel and the happily-ever-after ending?”
    “Ah. No,” he said. “I am not a believer in happy endings. Not when there is such . . . difference between two people.”
    Which pretty much said it all, didn’t it? They were too different.
    So she wasn’t surprised when he dropped her off at the hotel without asking for her cell phone number. Or when he didn’t drop by the next day or the next to see how she was doing or invite her out for a beer and a hot dog. She asked the concierge. He didn’t even leave a message.
    It was just another one-night stand, she told herself.
    Just a summer romance.
    Just the best sex of her life.
    And like her vacation, when it was over, it was over.
    Boy, was she wrong.

2

    WORLD’S END, MAINE, PRESENT DAY
     
    “YOU SAID WE COULD GO TO THE BEACH TODAY.” Seven-year-old Emily bounced on the sofa, her doll Molly clutched in her arms.
    Dr. Elizabeth Ramsey Rodriguez glanced up, distracted, from unpacking the last of the moving cartons. The box had traveled with them for nine hundred miles, crammed into the back of the CRV with Zack’s Xbox, Emily’s American Girl doll, and Liz’s laptop—items too precious, too necessary to living, to trust to a stranger’s care.
    “We will,” she promised. “Just as soon as I . . .”
    “Finish,” Emily said for her and grinned.
    Liz smiled back, love and guilt weighting her chest, tightening her throat. The whole point of this move was to spend more time with her children.
    Today was Sunday, her first official day off. The clinic was closed today. Of course, as the island’s new and only doctor, she was still on call. In an emergency—fish hooks, boating accidents, strokes, earaches—she was all that stood between the residents of World’s End and a hasty trip to the hospital on the mainland.
    But today was for Zack and Emily.
    Liz glanced at the clock. Almost noon. At home in North Carolina, fifteen-year-old Zachary rarely emerged from his room before lunchtime. Yet ever since their arrival on World’s End, he’d roused himself from bed to watch Emily while Liz saw her morning patients. His behavior was hardly extraordinary on World’s End, where other boys his age got up at dawn to haul lobster traps.
    But the change gave Liz hope. Maybe this move was just what her son needed.
    “Don’t you want to wait for your brother?” she asked.
    Emily fiddled with Molly’s braids, so different from her own halo of soft, dark curls. The doll’s pale, stiff complexion contrasted sharply against Emily’s warm, honey-colored skin. But they were dressed alike for the beach in bathing suits, flip-flops, and shorts. “Zack doesn’t like the beach.”
    “Of course he